Unique, Strategic First-Person-Shooter

Tremulous, another open source (free) game for PC, is a team-based strategy game where Space-Faring Humans and Hive-Mind Aliens battle in first-person, as well as building bases while destroying their opponents.

Tremulous is very dependent on teamwork and strategy. Each team must build their base in whatever way they think will stand up the longest against each way the enemy can attack it. Your team has a total amount of points to be spent on a base. By killing one of the enemy team, you get points. You as a player spend these points to upgrade yourself, but by being killed you will re-spawn without any of these upgrades.

The alien team builds regenerating buildings that hinder human advances, while the human buildings pack lots of quick damage but can be outsmarted. The human team uses their points to buy a variety of weaponry and armor, such as chainguns, flamethrowers, and energy cannons. They can also buy interesting upgrades such as a jetpack or a battlesuit. Aliens gain evolution points which they use to instantly mutate into larger aliens with very different movement and attack abilities. Some can grab a human from behind and crawl on walls, while others can jump off of walls and fire electricity. Overall, the goal is to upgrade your team until you can destroy the key components of your enemy's base and wipe out their team. Every game plays out differently, and there are plenty of maps to choose from.

Gameplay can get very creative. As teams get kills, they level the whole team into a wider set of buildings and upgrades. A high-level alien team gains the ability to build buildings on walls, ceilings, and hard to reach places far above the ground. A high level human team gains access to jetpacks, which can be used to reach the hard to reach alien bases. New types of alien and human upgrades create more varied combat, and more counters to current upgrades. With a good amount of cunning and a bit of luck, a skilled player with the weakest alien or human can take out a large alien or heavily armored human.

Tremulous was made as a complete mod for Quake 3. Its graphics are a bit lacking, but definitely good enough to play the game without difficulty. This means it can be run on most computers without a lot of lag. An added bonus is that it is cross platform -- all Windows, Mac, and even Linux users can install this game. It's definitely something everyone should try, especially because it is free -- and always will be.

Tremulous has been around since 2005 and still holds interest to players across the globe. The developers are currently morphing it into Tremz, a rebuild of the same game. It will feature much better graphics as well as new types of alien mutations and human technology. More information about Tremz as well as its development can be found here.